Home network advice

[Normoybr]

I am in the process of renovating our house and would like to install a home network I am a novice with AV and networking and thought I would post my plan and hopefully receive some feedback on the best way to proceed.

My existing kit is:
Sky + in lounge with TV etc
wireless broadband and sonos connect in hall by BT feed
play 1 in dining room and kitchen
sones amp and ceiling speakers in newly fitted upstairs bathroom, amp located in the loft
also an aerial in the loft that I have never used that feeds the lounge

The houses is a 3 bedroom house

My plan is to run network cable from under the stairs to all rooms and relocate the equipment in the hall to under the stairs. I will run 4 cat6 to each room minimum and more to the lounge TV location. As I understand this will provide me with internet to these points using the correct network hardware and if I located a nasdrive there in the future this could utilise the network.

Where I am struggling is on the TV side of things we currently have sky+ in the lounge and would like this in our bedroom and the capability to add TV's to the other bedrooms in the future. I have read about HDMI to cat6 adaptors to send the video signal but I don't quite how I would do this. Would I send the sky feed from the lounge via a the HDMI/cat6 adaptor to the under stairs cupboard then send that signal to various rooms? I have also read that at each TV point you should have a coax cable for TV is this a better way of installing TV?


I plan to start run the cable myself and will get someone in to configure I just want to be sure I have pulled enough cables and to the right places, I need to start pulling cable this weekend before having it plastered in a few weeks.

All advice and tips would be greatly appreciated

[silverous]

If you don't have experience of it I'd get someone to do Cat6. I can terminate Cat5 all day long but Cat6 seems harder to install and terminate correctly. I have some kit that sends my Sky signal from HDMI and also the separate audio cable to an upstairs room over Cat6 and sends IR back.

[Jon1967x]

How good do you want the tv picture away from the sky box? I use tv coax from the loft to the sky box and then back to the loft, from there via a distribution amp to the tvs all around the house. I get freeview and the sky channel on every tv and using magic eyes the ability to change channel on sky. This is relatively easy to do, cheap on hardware but quality is acceptable but not fantastic. In your case you could do all this under the stairs as the hub. I'd be tempted to do this regardless as you can use this to change channels even if you distribute the signal a better way.

If you want to distribute hdmi then you can get baluns that do it over cat6 (not sure about cat5) but the ones I've seen are point to point ie from the skybox to the tv you want to supply the signal to. You could route that via under the stairs but there are length limits and I imagine coupling cables can be a limit too.

[JimbobVFR]

Do you have a budget? How many rooms would you likely to want HD video distibuting to?

Doing this properly can be very expensive but basically you'd have all sources including the skyHD box in the central cupboard and distribute via a matrix switch and Ethernet cables.

An example of a matrix switch
http://www.tmfsolutions.co.uk/Octava_HDMX44CAT.htm

[Driller]

silverous said:

If you don't have experience of it I'd get someone to do Cat6. I can terminate Cat5 all day long but Cat6 seems harder to install and terminate correctly. I have some kit that sends my Sky signal from HDMI and also the separate audio cable to an upstairs room over Cat6 and sends IR back.

Aside from it's greater bend radius CAT6 is identical to CAT5 for installation purposes. Did mine 10 odd years ago.

[silverous]

Driller said:

Aside from it's greater bend radius CAT6 is identical to CAT5 for installation purposes. Did mine 10 odd years ago.

The bend radius was one factor, maybe it is also because I used external grade solid cat6 cable but I found it a lot harder to terminate successfully and read that it is a lot more unforgiving. See for example:

http://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/how-to-pick-the-righ...

Where it says "Cat 6 isn't all roses though. Some folks think Cat 6 is harder to install. Cat 6 conductors are twisted more tightly, and there's more insulation. So if you need to cut cables you need to go a little more slowly." as one example.

[Normoybr]

Thank you for all of your replies and I will try to answer your questions.

I had planned to get someone with experience of Cat6 to perform the terminations once I have pulled the cables I am aware I need to be careful when pulling the cable but I will have all of the floorboards up so it should limit the danger of trapping a cable and damaging it I hope.

For now if I could watch TV in the master bedroom and the lounge that be ok and use a magic eye to change channel.

Having read your ideas regarding coax I went and bought some and plane to run some to locations I would want a tv in the future i.e. the other to bedrooms. There is an existing aerial that I can connect them all to when required and this could do freeview in the future for kids rooms.

I haven't really set a budget which is probably dangerous and a mistake at this stage I would like to get the basics right so that I can then add to it, things like nasdrive under the stairs for all media

[kurtmcgill]

Normoybr

I moved into a new house a while back, but got the builder to feed HDMI cables (that I supplied) from near each TV Coax point to the loft.
However, if you're in a new build, its fairly easy to do yourself.

My set-up is as follows:

2 way splitter behind the Sky Box.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-WAY-HD-hub-switch-box-...

1 output lead to you main TV, 1 lead up to the Loft - Get a decent cable for this. I used one of these
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/MXHDM20E.html


4 way splitter in the loft
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HDMI-4K-x-2K-3D-HD-HUB-1...

then feed each additional room with HDMI's from the loft splitter.

All that's left is to buy yourself an AV sender (only you don't use the video part - just using the IR part for your remote(s) in each of the rooms elsewhere). Buy a brand that you can have one sender, but multiple receivers on.

This set-up works perfect for me and I don't have any picture loss.

Hope this helps.

[Normoybr]

Thank you kurtmcgill

Very helpful I will take a look at those links and work out what I need for the hdmi set up like yours